So how well is MRQ2 selling anyway?

[danskmacabre]

I personally have always loved RQ in it's various incarnations since I first played it in the 80s.

These days it's harder to find players for games that aren't Pathfinder or DnD, which is a shame, as I prefer the RQ systems.

So how is Mongoose and the MRQ2 system doing? Is it selling well?
There does appear to be an active community here anyway.

Anyway been having a great time reading the MRQ2 rules and Elric MRQ2.
I have a couple of players who want to play, so one or 2 more and I start a new Elric campaign.

[Dan True]

I have nothing to base this on, but I believe sales are okay - but only okay, not great. It seems they have postponed some publishings to the autumn, and I guess that must be because of low sales.

Btw, are you from dk?

- Dan

[danskmacabre]

I'm not, but I lived there for some years and I speak Danish.
My wife is Danish and my kids were born there too.
Currently we live in the UK, but I'm Australian.

Oh well, many companies aren't doing that well, I hope that MRQ2 and the Elric games will pick up or at least survive.
What with the current economic climate it's not easy.

[Mikko Leho]

Mongoose has been bringing up Pathfinder and D&D products, which is clear indication that MRQ2 has not been successful enough for them. With MRQ2 supplements disappearing from schedule, I think we will see a focus shift to other systems in the future.

[jolt]

In the most recent State of the Mongoose it was said that Traveller is far and away their best seller. I also got the feeling that MRQII was not selling as well as they had hoped. That doesn't mean sales were bad, just less than they were expecting and this might be affecting their scheduling decisions; especially as they try to push out a minis game.

I don't know how the mini's market is in the UK but in the US both of the "Big Two" (GW and Privateer Press) have been losing money. A lot of people just can't afford massive army games with constant updates anymore. I see more and more of the skirmish level games, like Malifeaux and HellDorado, and less and less 40k and Warmachine.

jolt

[danskmacabre]

That's not exactly great news for MRQ2/Elric games.

Looking at what's available, there's quite a lot of source material available, but largely converted from the MRQ1 version (Most of which I already have).
For me as a customer, I have bought the MRQ2 core rules and the Elric main book. These are essential purchases, I'll probably buy the Monster coliseum at some stage and maybe the Elric GM screen. But that's about it as far as core books go.

As to background I will get the Cities of the south book.

IMO, what's missing is Scenarios and stuff like that. Background books are well and good, but I would have thought Scenario books would sell well.
Take Pathfinder for example.
I run Pathfinder every Saturday evening, sometimes we change GMs and someone else run a scenario for a while.
I have bought probably about 4 or 5 scenario books over the last year.
2 other people who run games in this group have also bought a couple of scenarios this year for Pathfinder, That's sales which Mongoose have not got from me, as I can't see any scenario books available for Elric.
Background is all well and good (and appreciated) but we need scenarios as well to work with. My work keeps me pretty busy and I don't have as much time to devot to writing scenarios from scratch. I quite like published adventures, even if I usually do change them a fair bit to fit into my campaigns.

The other thing is The Pathfinder game has all the rules provided for free on an SRD website, that includes the Advanced players guide, Bestiary etc.
At first glance this seems counterproductive, but it's not.
It gives people a change to check out the system.
Even though I DO use the SRD quite a bit, I have actually bought ALL of the Pathfinder rules books.
One of the other players has also bought the core rules books and even the Golarion world book as well. I think this is largely as he has seen everything online first and convinced him to buy the books.

One thing I'd love to see is a decent sized book of mini adventures specifically written for the Elric RPG. I could use them as side adventures when running a larer scenario.
And a few long term large Scenarios, linked together so I can move the group on and puchase the next part as I need it.
Inevitably other storylines will come out of this and I'll end up using my own material, but starting off with supplied scenarios is a great way to get the creative juices flowing.
I like to use Supplied scenarios as it means less work for me and more time to spend actually having fun and running games.

I hope these comments are taken in the spirit they are intended, as I actually PREFER the MRQ2 system, it's just hard to find players who are willing to give it a go over DnD and Pathfinder.
I d think Paizo have a good business model really, they make LOADS of scenarios avaliable for PF (well DnD) which means they don't just rely on core rulesbooks to keep a system going.

[Verderer]

I dunno if there is any RPG at the moment that's doing exactly great? Even the big ones like D&D seem to be struggling a bit? This may be due to general slump in RPGs, or perhaps due to the changed system (more like miniature combat game than pure RPG these days?) I guess it has always been rather hard to make an RPG a great success or profitable (if you measure success by profit?), due to the nature of RPGs?

I don't think it is very useful to compare RPGs to miniature games, because they're very different beasts, despite their apparent similarities. There are big differences in production, design, sales numbers and profit margins, I would think? I imagine it is much more costly to produce a quality RPG product, and even then you'd expect to sell less units and get a smaller profit margin than with miniatures? That is my general impression about the matter anyways? Of course, with plastic miniatures the initial cost of steel molds is high, and you need to sell loads of units to even break even. But after that producing plastics is pretty cheap, whereas with books it never gets any cheaper.

[PhilHibbs]

The other thing is The Pathfinder game has all the rules provided for free on an SRD website, that includes the Advanced players guide, Bestiary etc.
At first glance this seems counterproductive, but it's not.

What you're saying here is, "Pathfinder is successful because the original rules publisher made the mistake of releasing SRD under an open content licence, whereupon a third party stole their lunch. Therefore Mongoose should follow the example of the original publisher that has not lost a lot of its market to Pazio!"

Open content licences can be a two-edged sword, as Pazio's success illustrates.

[danskmacabre]

When you refer to miniatures games, are you referring to Pathfinder/DnD or the comment about moving to miniatures made by another poster?

Pathfinder seems to be doing very well, arguably better than DnD 4E.
I do quite like Pathfinder, it's just I prefer RQ type systems, manly as I feel the combats are more interesting and level based systems (IMO) tend to get out of control easily.

[danskmacabre]

What you're saying here is, "Pathfinder is successful because the original rules publisher made the mistake of releasing SRD under an open content licence, whereupon a third party stole their lunch. Therefore Mongoose should follow the example of the original publisher that has not lost a lot of its market to Pazio!"
Open content licences can be a two-edged sword, as Pazio's success illustrates.

That's not strictly speaking true.
Yes WOTC relased 3.5 as open source. However they dumped it for 4E.
So just wanted it to die in favor of 4E.
But many people LIKED 3.5 and saw PF as a living system to keep their 3.5 interest going.
So Paizo didn't "Steal their lunch"
WOTC dropped a section of their customer base and Paizo picked it up (On top of that WOTC dropped Paizo as well).


I wasn't referring to the opensource part of the SRD anyway, I meant displaying all the rules online for everyone to see as a whole and possibly getting more people interested.

[danskmacabre]

Anyway seeing as there aren't any Scenarios avaliable for the current version of Elric, I'm thinking of putting some small ones together in the spare time that I DO have.
So I'm be happy to post them here if people are interested.

I'm not sure what format they should be in though. I guess PDF would be the easiest.

[PhilHibbs]

I wasn't referring to the opensource part of the SRD anyway, I meant displaying all the rules online for everyone to see as a whole and possibly getting more people interested.

Mongoose won't even let me distribute my 5-page quick reference rules summary.
In times like these (4/6 of my gaming group are unemployed) having access to the rules for free is a big disincentive to buying a copy. On the other hand, it's inevitable that dodgydownload.com copies of the PDF will be available anyway.

[Mikko Leho]

I dunno if there is any RPG at the moment that's doing exactly great?

Fantasy Flight Games is doing great with their Warhammer licenses. Some people speculated that FFG was just after GW's board game properties, but now they are actually expanding their RPG line beyond what was originally planned by Black Industries, so I believe their RPG sales are strong. Also FFG is releasing a new Fireborn novel, which I think is a way to test if there is still a demand for Fireborn RPG.

[danskmacabre]

I wasn't referring to the opensource part of the SRD anyway, I meant displaying all the rules online for everyone to see as a whole and possibly getting more people interested.

Mongoose won't even let me distribute my 5-page quick reference rules summary.
In times like these (4/6 of my gaming group are unemployed) having access to the rules for free is a big disincentive to buying a copy. On the other hand, it's inevitable that dodgydownload.com copies of the PDF will be available anyway.

The 4 unemployed of your gaming group might never buy a copy of the game (and stick with the online version), but if the game is being played, there's a greater chance that SOMEONE in the group will buy some material.
At least that's how it's worked with PF in my experience.
And Paizo have recently reported doing very well using a model like this.

And like you say, it's easy enough to get a dodgy PDF copy of a game if you really want to, I just choose to pay for my hobby. If we don't it will disappear.

[danskmacabre]

Mongoose won't even let me distribute my 5-page quick reference rules summary.

hmmm I wonder if I need to ask permission to post mini-scenarios on here...

[danskmacabre]

Ooh I just noticed this.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/ ... Quest%20II

That looks interesting, not specifically for Elric and the text infers it's older adventures put together, even so I will probably get this.

[Mikko Leho]

In times like these (4/6 of my gaming group are unemployed) having access to the rules for free is a big disincentive to buying a copy.

On the other hand Eclipse Phase is selling well even though the whole rulebook and its supplements are freely downloadable.

[Verderer]

When you refer to miniatures games, are you referring to Pathfinder/DnD or the comment about moving to miniatures made by another poster?

Pathfinder seems to be doing very well, arguably better than DnD 4E.
I do quite like Pathfinder, it's just I prefer RQ type systems, manly as I feel the combats are more interesting and level based systems (IMO) tend to get out of control easily.

danskmacabre, if you meant me, I was commenting on jolts reference to GW and Privateer press. I don't know Pathfinder, but as far as I can tell D&D is now something between a miniature game and RPG, hence I called it a miniature combat game (whatever that migth be?=))

[Verderer]

I dunno if there is any RPG at the moment that's doing exactly great?

Fantasy Flight Games is doing great with their Warhammer licenses. Some people speculated that FFG was just after GW's board game properties, but now they are actually expanding their RPG line beyond what was originally planned by Black Industries, so I believe their RPG sales are strong. Also FFG is releasing a new Fireborn novel, which I think is a way to test if there is still a demand for Fireborn RPG.

I am curious, Mikko. How do you know this, and would this apply to both their new WFRP and their Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader et. al lines?

[danskmacabre]

I don't know Pathfinder, but as far as I can tell D&D is now something between a miniature game and RPG, hence I called it a miniature combat game (whatever that migth be?=))

Having played Pathfinder quite a bit (it's basically DnD 3.5 tarted up).
It's as much an RPG as any RPG out there, including any version of RQ.
It just has a different approach to it.
I do enjoy it and tactical combat is more fleshed out than say MRQ2.
Once you get used to it, it uses miniatures very well, but really it's down to how you want to run the game, miniatures aren't essential.

For me MRQ2 has the hit locations and the maneuvers are more accessible (in PF you have to buy "Feats" to do special moves), whereas in MRQ2 anyone can have a go at combat maneuvers, which I prefer.
I think MRQ2 is more suited to a more abstract combat system too, which can be nice.

As to DnD version 4, I haven't played that. I too have heard it is pretty much essential to use miniatures and is crossing the line between a boardgame and RPG. But having not actually read the rules or played the game I can't say if this is true or not.